But that was only part of her brain, and a small part at that. Most of her brain was focused on the fact that she was standing alone, with nothing but a sword clutched in her hand, while one very large and very tough-looking and very mean-looking Confederate regular advanced toward her. Wearing full armor and a helmet, bearing a shield—how in the name of the gods did he manage to drag that with him under a wagon?—and holding an assegai with a lot more assurance than she was holding her sword.
Ah, just what she needed. Two regulars, now. No, three. None of whom seemed the least bit inclined toward anything other than hacking her to pieces.
No—four. The new one, judging from the sword in his hand and the quick way he steadied the others into squad formation, being their sergeant. Oh, shit.
Helga drew a deep breath, steadied herself, and raced through all of Lortz’s training. She took the sword in a two-handed grasp—don’t even try that fancy Emerald swordplay against assegais, missy, not facing regulars—set her feet—
And found herself bouncing across the packed earth of the laager ground. The first bounce on her ass, the second on her shoulders. She almost flipped upside down.
Lortz had not been gentle. Any more than he was, in the next few seconds, fending off the four oncoming regulars. In a bit of a daze, Helga watched the ex-gladiator put on a display of swordsmanship which would have had the mob in the arena shrieking with frenzied approval. He didn’t actually kill any of them—nor even wound them badly—but she realized he wasn’t trying to. Just keep them off, while the idiot woman he was guarding—
Rough hands seized the back of her tunic and yanked her away.
“Damn lunatic!” yelled Jessep in her ear. “Your father’d have me flayed alive—impaled—prob’ly both at the same time! What in the name of the gods—”
She ignored the rest, which Yunkers continued shouting as he dragged her back along the ground. Partly because her butt hurt—the ground was packed but had not been cleared of stones—but mostly because she was too engrossed in the scene.
Her hundred had arrived. A quick shout from First Spear Uther, and Lortz scampered nimbly away. His job was done, and done well; the professional fighter was quite happy to leave the rest to other professionals.
Wise man, she thought, wincing as another stone scraped her hindquarters and wondering whether the tunic would be salvageable. Probably not. Jessep’s pissed—really pissed—I can tell. I think he’s going to drag me all the way back to the wagon.
But even that was an idle thought. Mainly, she was just fascinated to see, up close, a really excellent hundred go to work.
Tomsien’s men never had a chance, really. Not only were they outnumbered better than two to one, but the crawl under the wagons had disrupted their own formation while Uther’s was picture-perfect. The Confederate war machine went into action against Confederates who’d been dislodged from it. It was more like watching butchers at work than anything else. The men facing them were trying to form up, but Uther never gave them a chance.
Just . . . the triangular wedges went out, breaking the formations before they could jell, forcing the men into the pockets—the “saw,” that—where three or four assegais could come against one. And that one, without a shield mate.
Like cutting meat. Saw, saw, saw. It was over within a minute. About the time it took Jessep to drag her to the wagon. Which, she thought glumly, had probably done a pretty good job of sawing her own buttocks.
“You could have let me up sooner,” she complained, after rising painfully to her feet. She twisted her hips, bringing the damage into few.
Yep. That tunic’s history. So’s every position except woman-on-top, for at least a month.
“A lot sooner, dammit!”
Jessep growled. “I wouldn’t trust you outside of a crib, right now.”
* * *
Adrian wasn’t any more sympathetic, when he found out. By then, it was late afternoon and Helga had been able to put on a fresh tunic from the wagon. The battle was over. When the final frenzied breaches had been driven off, the Confederates had quit. None of them had actually broken in a rout, except a few companies here and there. But by the time Tomsien finally called for the retreat, his army was too mangled to carry it out in an orderly manner. And since it was still hours before sundown, here in the long days of late summer, Prelotta had ordered the wagons prepared to serve as sally ports to be moved aside. Esmond had stormed through at the head of thousands of Southron cavalrymen. His own Grayhills were primed and ready, and even the other tribesmen were now filled with triumphant vigor if not much in the way of leadership and organization. They just followed the Grayhills.